


Fasten Your Seatbelt, Slut Puppy

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Community: trope_bingo, Imprisonment, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:56:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the outskirts of Seattle, an imprisoned man finds hope. Well, if you consider a homicidal gangster hope.  If you like bullets, snark, and 80s AUs, this might be the fic for you. A prequel to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/169919">The Oyabun Who Really Should Have Known Better.</a></p>
<p>Written for the AU: Other square in trope_bingo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fasten Your Seatbelt, Slut Puppy

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This contains some offensive slang and very "United States in the eighties" attitudes toward Asians.

Gunshots.

Jan opened his eyes.

Okay, awake. Aware. At least a couple hours since they'd shoved something up his nose for funsies, so he should be pretty sharp. He looked at the window; it was dark. Even better, it'd been more like half a day, if he was any judge of the light. His current keeper had risen from the leather couch and had his gun out; he wasn't paying any attention to Jan, still curled up at the foot of the couch. That meant Jan hadn't dreamt the shots. Encouraging.

Jan licked his lips; they were dry. He was dehydrated, still hung over from yesterday. But he had one thing over on his keeper. Okay, two things. One, he was smarter. Two, he was really fucking angry.

Pop, pop. Who was winning?

Someone barked orders over the intercom until his voice was cut off by a gunshot. Jan grinned. That was a good sign.

"Stay still, asshole," his keeper said, finally remembering Jan existed. This one was named...ugh, Jim maybe? It wasn't Italian at all. Most of them had Italian names even if they weren't Italian. They kept trying to up-mob each other. One guy kept telling stories about Sicily that Jan was pretty sure came from _The Golden Girls._ Sofia probably could've taken him one-handed anyway.

He held his breath and waited. Jim was holding his gun on the door closest to the gunshots.

More shots. Screaming now. That was the Sicily guy, Jan was pretty sure, begging for his mother. _Mama's not gonna help you, dick._ He grinned and started rising. Slowly, slowly; he didn't want to get any of the wrong attention. But Jim was focused on the screaming. His right arm was shaking just a little.

Oh yeah.

"I'm ready for you," Jim said under his breath.

Jan wanted to laugh.

He moved as swiftly as he could; hangover or no, he looped the chain of his handcuffs over Jim's neck before the asshole knew what was happening, and _pulled._ He'd lost a lot of muscle and he hadn't had a good meal in what felt like a year. But it didn't matter. He was _pissed off._ He pulled as hard as he could and yanked downward, pinning Jim's neck between his knee and the chain. Pull, pull, pull; don't think he's dead when he stops breathing, that's _not enough._

The gunshots faded, or maybe it was just that there was so much screaming now it was hard to tell.

"I think he's dead," someone said.

Jan looked down. A good chunk of Jim's throat looked like hamburger.

"Yeah," Jan said, "maybe."

The man in front of him was wearing a white suit and pale blue t-shirt spattered with blood. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

Jan disentangled himself from what was left of Jim and held up the cuffs. "My father owed Lanza money."

"Well," the man said, "he's dead." He scanned the room with his eyes and started walking out the other door.

"Hold on," Jan said. "I'm chained to this fucking chair."

The man was wearing thick tortoiseshell glasses. He squinted at Jan through them. "You're kidding."

Jan wiggled his ankle so the chains would clank.

"Hold still," the man said, and shot through the chain at his ankle.

And then he turned _again_ and started walking away.

_No fucking way,_ Jan thought and hurried to follow him.

"Don't follow me," the man said.

"You're shitting me," Jan said. "You think I should stay here until the cops come?"

"I'm sure you're perfectly capable." The man was scanning the rooms as he passed through, his eyes moving left, right, left, right. "I'm not a babysitter."

"Fuck off," Jan said. "I just want out. You wanna know where the safe is?" He had no idea where it was, but it would buy him time.

"I don't care about the safe," the man said. "I'm here to send a message."

"What's the message, you're a dangerous fucker?"

The man pushed his glasses up on his nose. "More or less."

"Message received, then. I'm impressed."

The man paused and half-turned toward him. "Look--"

"You can shoot me," Jan said, "or I'm coming with you. I've spent months here, and I'm getting out one way or another."

The man considered for another moment, then held his gun up so it was level with Jan's head. He took the safety off.

Jan waited.

The man lowered his gun. "All right," he said. "But you're getting out of the car as soon as we're clear. And you never saw me."

"Fine by me." He was half-wishing he'd never seen the guy already. "You give me a gun, I can shoot."

"You find one, it's yours. I'm not stopping to arm you." He didn't seem to be stopping for anything. Which was probably smart. They were out in the boonies here but someone still could've heard all those shots. He followed the guy at a few paces' distance -- there could still be someone there with a gun, and Jan had been close enough to getting shot for one day. There was a gun on one of the bodies as they approached the back door; Jan grabbed it, holding it as well as he could with his wrists still cuffed.

The guy looked Asian. Jan remembered someone talking shit about some 'slant-eyes' trying to get into their territory. Guess they hadn't been totally wrong, for once. The slant eyes could burn the whole fucking operation down, that'd be good.

"Where you from, buddy?"

"I'm not your buddy. And you don't need to know that."

Right. Not a talker. Good shot, though, especially if he'd done all that alone. Scary good. "Don't suppose you'd want to help me with the cuffs."

"Later," he said.

There was no one else, alive or dead, on their way out. Jan followed the guy down the hill and into the woods; the guy's car was parked on the side of a narrow strip of dirt road. He stripped his jacket and shirt off, throwing them into a garbage bag in the trunk.

His upper chest and back were covered with intricate, dark tattoos. He had a nice body underneath the suit and all the ink. Really nice. He totally worked out. Pretty good looking overall, when you thought about it.

"Done staring?" the guy asked, when he was finished.

Jan just held his hands out. "Waiting," he said.

The man frowned. "I don't want to shoot around here." He grabbed a blanket from the trunk and threw it at Jan. "Cover up."

Jan more or less caught it. He hadn't really thought about what he was wearing. They'd put a skirt and a tube top on him a couple of days ago and hadn't bothered letting him change since. He must reek, too.

The guy had a Thermos of water in the trunk, and he washed his hands with it. Then he stripped off his pants, put them in the bag, and took a clean pair, grey this time, out of the car. He pulled on another blue t-shirt and got into the front seat. "Hurry up."

Jan slid into shotgun, dragged the blanket over his lap and the gun, and started looking for something he could pick the cuffs with. There were a couple of paper clips on the floor, so he dug one up and got to work.

The guy put his signal on -- hilarious, with no one there -- and slid onto the road. "You really been in there for months?"

"Think so. What month is it?"

The guy shot him a look. "September."

"Since June," he said. Shit. He'd known it, but it still sucked. His apartment would probably be gone, and he'd be lucky if his shit was in storage. He hadn't exactly had the most ethical landlady. The first cuff broke open, and he rubbed the raw skin under his wrist, red and white in patches.

"Is that infected?"

It probably was. "They weren't much on hygiene," he said.

"Why were you there?"

"My father owed them money."

He looked skeptical. "You already said that. That's all?"

God, it hurt with the cuff off. He almost didn't want to do the other one. "It was a lot of money. They took my sister too." He closed his eyes. "You cut the cameras, right?"

"Of course."

"They had a few outside the house, you should probably ditch the car."

"Already in the plan," he said. "There's some antiseptic in the glove compartment."

Jan popped it open. There were bandages too. Score. "You got a name?"

"Yeah." The dirt road was pretty short, and the guy pulled onto the main road. "What happened to your sister?"

He shrugged. "Dunno." Probably dead. She'd fought a lot harder. Jan had figured he should bide his time. Guess that had worked. He worked the second cuff open and bandaged his other wrist. "What are you? Chinese, Japanese?"

"Japanese," he said. "My mother married a GI."

"At least give me something to call you," he said. "This is stupid."

The man shot him a ghost of a smile. "Crawford."

"Well, Crawford," he said. "I don't really like imposing on you, but maybe you could help me get some pants."

 

Crawford came out of the Salvation Army and threw a paper bag of clothes into Jan's lap.

"Thanks," Jan said, and started fishing through the contents. A pair of ratty bellbottom jeans, a fake fur vest, and a tiny pink nylon shirt. "You're a dick," he said.

"I could've left you in the skirt." He really was smiling at that. "And I didn't promise you anything. You're not my.problem."

"Speaking of problems," Jan said. "That van's been following us for half a mile."

The smile vanished. "You're sure."

"Wasn't until they decided to stop in and buy a used coffeepot. Pretty sure now."

Crawford took a sharp, brutal corner. "Hang on," he said. "Can you shoot or were you bullshitting me?"

"I can shoot. Never tried it from a moving car." Jan pulled the gun out from under the blanket. "Only got two bullets, maybe three if there's one in the chamber. Any idea who they are?" It wasn't the assholes who had held him, if there were any of those fuckers left anyway.

"Not sure. I've...sent several messages."

"Great."

Crawford took another sharp turn. He'd picked up speed, but was still being cautious. Guess he didn't want the cops noticing. They were heading further into the city; Crawford might be planning to lose them in traffic. Worth a try, anyway. He kept his grip on the gun anyway.

"Here's what's going to happen," Crawford said. "I'm going to try to lose them in Beacon Hill. If that doesn't work, we'll leave the city and shoot it out. Can you drive?"

"Yeah." The blue van was staying close.

"You okay with taking the wheel if you have to?"

"Yeah."

He scanned the horizon. "I should've switched cars sooner."

"You keep going this way, there's a shitty motel near the edge of town. We leave the car there, it'll be gone in half an hour. As long as you have something you can get out of town with, you'd be clear."

"And what happens to us?"

"We ditch these assholes first," Jan said, craning his neck around. They were still about two hundred yards back. "You can do that, right? You're superfly or whatever. Got kung fu skills."

"Kung fu isn't Japanese," Crawford said, taking another sharp turn, this one down a side street. "And I get a lot more done with a gun."

"I saw that," Jan said. "So what, your mob's bigger than their mob?"

"We're going to be," Crawford said. "It's not a mob. It's a brotherhood. _Ninkyou dantai._ Usually Americans say _yakuza."_

Jan repeated the word, the unfamiliar consonants and vowels feeling weird against his tongue. "So why are you out here?"

"We're expanding," he said.

"Man, you guys really are trying to take over everything."

"Very funny," Crawford said, and swung through another tight corner.

"One way street up here," Jan said. "Hit it, double back, you might lose them."

"We'll try it," Crawford said. "But keep your gun in your hand."

Later, he wondered which of them had been more surprised when it worked.

 

There were two crappy motels just outside town, so they ditched the car at the first one and got a room where they could keep an eye on it at the other. A crude surveillance method, but it would work.

Jan claimed the bathroom first and showered until he ran out of hot water. Even the shitty motel soap felt good, and his wrists didn't sting as much when he rebandaged them. He put the crappy clothes from the Salvation Army on - the cheap bastard hadn't even picked up boxer shorts - and walked back out into the room.

Crawford was sitting on the bed closest to the window, cleaning his gun. He glanced at Jan, then took a second, longer look.

Jan smiled; he'd rinsed his mouth out so many times in the sink his gums hurt, but it'd been worth it. He almost felt human. He'd found an old razor blade behind the sink and hacked off the worst of his matted hair. It looked punk now, reddish again now it was clean. Even though he'd told Crawford to go a size smaller on the jeans, they were loose; he'd lost a shitload of weight. The jeans hung low on his hips, and the shirt stretched over his chest. He hadn't bothered with the vest. "What," he said. "Not what you expected?"

"What's your name?" Crawford said, and Jan counted that as a win.

Not Jan, he decided immediately; they'd teased him about it in school, and his captors had used it as a cudgel. "Jan's a girl's name," Jim had said, poking at his ribs with a sharp leather shoe. Jan had answered back with "Fuck you, it's German," and had gotten kicked hard for his trouble.

"Schuldig," he said now.

Crawford's grin stretched over his face like a shark's as he turned his attention back to the window. "I like it," he said. "Were you born in Germany?"

He nodded. "We moved here when I was three. Mom took off years ago." There was nothing holding him in place any more. "You know German?"

"A little," he said. "One of the guys my father served with stayed friends with Mom, and he taught me. He'd lived in Fulda for years and he was pretty much fluent." He glanced back at Schuldig, looking him up and down again before turning back to the car. "So what are you guilty of?"

Schuldig grinned. "Wanna find out?"

"I'd rather find out who's looking for my car."

Schuldig walked over and sat next to him on the bed, close enough that their thighs touched. "After? You're pretty hot when you're killing shit."

"Flattering," Crawford said. "I'll think it over."

Schuldig watched him speculatively for a few minutes, then decided he wasn't in the mood to wait. He reached over and grabbed Crawford's zipper.

"What are you doing?" Crawford said sharply.

"Relax," Schuldig said. "You keep looking out the window, I keep you from getting too bored. I think we could really get something going here. Beautiful friendship or whatever."

"You fuck up my aim, I'll shoot you in the head," Crawford said, but made no move to stop him.

"Deal," Schuldig said, and got down on his knees.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to emungere for betaing. The title is from _The Golden Girls._ Because of course it is.


End file.
